Sunday, June 13, 2010

Midnight Predator (Den of Shadows, #4) by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Midnight, the ancient evil sanctuary of vampires and their human slaves that was burned to the ground centuries ago, has risen from the ashes to open its dark doors once more. And it's up to Turquoise Draka, famed human vampire hunter of the Bruja guild, to stop Midnight's founder and vampire most malevolent, Jeshikah. But once inside Midnight's walls, Turquoise discovers that instead of Jeshikah, the surprisingly benign vampire Jaguar is at the helm. Acting as a human slave, Turquoise tries to discern Jaguar's mysteriously kind motives as she works at planning Jeshikah's assassination. Meanwhile, her acting servitude is playing havoc with her memories, as she begins to recall the bleak days when she used to be a human slave herself, the time before her training as an elite Bruja warrior. With bitter memories of beatings and humiliations battling with her present suicidal assignment, Turquoise must do everything in her power to keep from blowing her cover and losing her sanity.

While this is listed as #4 in the Den of Shadows series, it is really a stand alone. There were no characters that I recognized from the earlier books and the only similarity is that the vampires are in both books. This is an entirely different group of vamps who live in a very different lifestyle than the previous books. This book evolves around the slave trade and a group called Midnight where vamps have human slaves.

The book itself was quite enjoyable, the characters well developed and overall a much more mature writing style than the previous books by this author.